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For the second time this
week, T&T welcomes a
distinguished visitor.
Close on the heels of a brief
stopover by United States Vice-
President Joseph Biden, Chi-
nese President Xi Jinping
arrives on these shores today
on a three-day visit.
President Xi's trip to the
region, which also includes
stops in Costa Rica and Mexi-
co, follows his first foreign trip
to Russia and three countries
in Africa---Tanzania, South
Africa and Congo-Brazzaville---
shortly after taking office in
March.
He will also travel to the
United States for his first sum-
mit with President Barack
Obama in June in California.
There is great interest in this
visit, not only within the
region but among global
observers.
While economic co-operation
has already been pursued, there
is much more to T&T-China
relations, based on a strong
foundation of historic and
social connections.
Chinese people set foot here
more than 200 years ago, and
T&T has a thriving indigenous
Chinese ethnic, cultural and
business community. Partly as
a result, this country enjoys a
higher level of trade with
China than most other
Caribbean countries, and has
had healthy diplomatic rela-
tions with China since 1974.
Apart from frequent high-
level visits for trade and eco-
nomic co-operation, there are
regular exchanges in culture
and education. Two or three
cultural groups come to T&T
each year and the number of
students and trainees going to
China has been increasing.
Chinese language courses are
already offered at the St
Augustine campus of the Uni-
versity of the West Indies and
to meet increasing demand, the
courses will be expanded
through the Confucius Insti-
tute, which is based at that
campus.
For T&T and the rest of the
region, the importance of this
visit cannot be underestimated.
In recent years, China has
been aggressively pursuing
stronger trade and investment
ties with the developing world,
including the 15-member Cari-
com bloc, to secure raw mate-
rials to fuel its economic
growth.
At a time when the global
economy is undergoing very
significant structural changes,
with growth now being piloted
by a different set of players,
the strategic importance of
President Xi's visit cannot be
ignored.
China, a key part of the new
grouping known as BRICS---
Brazil, Russia, India, China and
South Africa---is poised to
become one of the world's
dominant suppliers of manu-
factured goods and services.
With BRICS rapidly evolving
into a powerful economic bloc,
maintaining and strengthening
ties with one of its key mem-
bers could be to the advantage
of Caricom states, opening up
opportunities in global markets
that this region needs.
China, with a population of
more than 1.3 billion, is the
third largest investor in the
Caribbean and Latin America,
accounting for nine per cent of
foreign investment in this
region.
As traditional markets and
sources of income dwindle and
the balance of global economic
and politic power shifts, it is
clear that there is much to be
gained from this historic first
visit to T&T by a President of
China.
At a time when the global economy is undergoing very significant structural
changes, with growth now being piloted by a different set of players, the strategic
importance of President Xi's visit cannot be ignored.
A product of Guardian Media Ltd
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For the tens of thousands of West
Indian immigrants who live within the
Greater Toronto Area, Rob Ford, the city's
mayor, has always been a polarising
figure...
During the last few months allegations
have surfaced that Ford groped the
buttocks of a former political rival while
intoxicated; that he was asked to leave a
function because he was visibly drunk;
and, most recently, that there is video
evidence of him consorting with known
drug dealers and allegedly smoking crack
cocaine.
The video became a full-blown intrigue
in its own right after the American gossip
site Gawker tried to raise $200,000
through online crowdfunding to pay the
drug dealers who had filmed it...
Rarely has municipal politics in Toronto
produced such a slew of tabloid fodder...
The tabloidisation of modern reportage
has made us too familiar with the failings
of the rich and famous, and less and less
capable of focusing on moral and political
questions that their personal crises
illustrate. Providing no laws are broken,
checkered private lives should be
important only insofar as they affect
public functions. To treat them otherwise
is to read the news like a soap opera. If
and when the Mayor resigns in disgrace,
the city will still have to deal with all of
the divisive issues that are simmering
while he remains in office...
There are good reasons to dislike like
Rob Ford. He is vulgar, incurious, arrogant
and surprisingly prejudiced for a public
figure in a modern multicultural
metropolis. But none of this changes the
fact that the public sphere has gone
seriously awry when it has become
permissible for drug dealers to seek lavish
compensation for a video that exposes
the allegedly illegal behaviour of a
prominent public figure in a major city.
That their request could be taken
seriously and funded by a well-publicised
campaign is one of the more discouraging
signs of the times.
---Stabroek News
Notes on a scandal
A30
FRIDAY,
MAY 31,
2013
• Twitter: @GuardianTT • Web: guardian.co.tt
Important visit by Xi